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The Friday Five, 11/9/18: 5 things I've been up to this week

I am feeling a little better this week, still feverish but it's low enough that I can pop some Tylenol and go to work. This was the first week where I started to hang out with friends and do a bit more outside my house, too.

Urbanrest Brewing, Ferndale

What I've been up to this week:

Eating good noms. On Saturday, a friend and I went to Urbanrest Brewing, in Ferndale, because I had been invited to try some items from the Simply Spanish food cart (pictured above). The cart is normally in Detroit, but was at the brewery for the night. They spoiled us—we must have tried like eight different plates, including their chicken paella and a ton of their sandwiches—and everything was delicious. I highly recommend checking them out. Apparently Urbanrest does food carts/trucks all the time, too—there was a Tom+Chee one there earlier in the day, which I wish I had known about, since all of the Tom+Chee locations near me, except for Canton, have now closed.

Seeing a lot of movies. On Sunday, I saw Can You Ever Forgive Me?, at Main Art, which was quite good—Melissa McCarthy has the chops for dramatic acting, even though she rarely does dramatic movies. On Monday, I saw a screening of The Girl in the Spider's Web, which was also very good, and on Tuesday, a friend and I saw The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, for MJR's $5 Ticket Tuesday, and unfortunately that one was just okay ... I'd give it like 3 out of 5 stars.

Cooking. I had a Dinnerly delivery last week and a Hello Fresh (my favorite service) this week. On Sunday, we made red pepper paninis from Dinnerly, which were decent, although surprisingly, I liked the side salad—made with white wine vinegar—even more so than the panini. On Wednesday, I made sweet and smoky chicken cutlets from Hello Fresh, with pineapple rice and green beans, and that was very tasty, too. I was going to make my second HF recipe yesterday, another chicken recipe, but I was craving pizza ... will have to cook that this weekend instead.

Voting! On Tuesday, of course. My precinct is a small elementary school in Clawson and rarely has lines (and it didn't this time, either) but it did seem busier than usual.

Setting my clocks back for Daylight Saving Time. First off, apparently it's "Saving Time" and not "Savings," even though I always pronounce it "Savings." Supposedly getting an extra hour of sleep is all good and well, but for some reason I've been tired this week ... perhaps I need to get more sleep at night, or something.

So we've all been there ... that time when you're on an important phone call, and then the call drops. Or even when you need to use the internet on your smartphone, only to realize that you're at your data limit for the month.

I drive all over the metro Detroit area for movie screenings; because of this, most of the time I know where I'm going, but sometimes, I'm in an unfamiliar area or at an unfamiliar theater and I need GPS to know how to get there and back.

A few months ago, I was headed to the AMC Forum (Sterling Heights area) and I wanted to know the best way to get home from there. My phone kept stalling ... and stalling ... and then the Maps app crashed! Gah! I was extremely frustrated. I was finally able to re-start the phone and get safely home, but it TOOK. SO. LONG. Had the Maps app worked the fir…

*Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own. As long-time readers of this blog surely know, I travel quite a lot. A few years ago, I only took about 2-3 trips per year, not including trips in the state of Michigan (Grand Haven weekends, etc.), but this past year, I was fortunate in that I was able to travel very frequently.

I recently heard about a new travel site, DirectHotels.com, which is similar to Kayak.com, in that it searches all of the other travel sites (Orbitz, Expedia, etc.) to find the best deals for you. I gave it a bit of a test run to see if that is indeed true.

About the site:
DirectHotels.com is a new hotel comparison tool that challenges the big brands. Travelers can easily compare all the travel sites in one place to find the cheapest hotel. DirectHotels.com compares over 200 bookings sites, so users can be sure about its accuracy. Using DirectHotels.com means that you will never overpay.

I've written these past two years about Bookstock, a huge used book & media sale that takes place at Laurel Park Place, in Livonia, and it's returning again this year, from Sunday, 4/22 through Sunday, 4/29.Read more about the event over at my book blog! I was finally able to check it out last year, and they had a large mix of books and media (including DVDs, Blu-rays, and records).To learn more about Bookstock, click hereto visit my book blog, or visit their official site here.